[TowerTalk] Lightning protection

[jccrtv@jccrtv.com]

Out here at the eastern tip of Long Island I bought the big Polyphaser box
that goes between the mains and the breaker panel. It's hefty and cost a bit
more. We also have APC devices on all the the electronic stuff in the house,
including Poly boxes at the telephone and CATV entrances. After losing a
bunch of gear to a nearby hit, I have been running around disconnecting
everything when the frequent storms come through. Since I've installed all
of this, not ONE thunderstorm has come through! There's a natural law about
this...the same that that has kept hurricanes away from my area ever since
we had a mega-generator installed (we work out of our home) a couple of
years ago. For the tower I have a Polyphaser entrance panel, although I
STILL made disconnects for all cables. And I have very thick ground strap to
a long chain of ground rods. My electrician sunk a few ten footers for the
Poly AC entrance panel. Once the 10 footers were in the ground he attached a
coupler to the top of each, which allowed another ten footer to be attached
to the ones below in the ground. This effectively made 20 foot ground rods.
He explained that the water table is so high here by the ocean, that the
rods are almost surely hitting water. Can't wait (I think) to see if I have
the guts to leave the electronic gear plugged in now. By the way, KUDOS to
Steve at DavisRF who walked me through the whole lightning protection
process, and spent way too much time patiently helping me. Outstanding
service.

Jim KS1A
Cutchogue, Long Island


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